Stage 4 of the Nature Valley Grand Prix brought the riders to downtown Minneapolis for a tight and technical, flat and fast criterium. The L-shaped course featured 6 90-degree corners with a few extra bends and a narrow bus access road to make sure everyone was paying attention. For the ISCorp team, Matthew Busche and Steve Scholzen finished in the main pack while Roessingh got popped off the field with one lap to go. We'll take a look at their stats and graphs and then compare those to Johnny Clarke, a rider for the Toyota United Professional Cycling Team.

	Roessingh	Scholzen	Busche	Clarke
Weight (kg.)	70	70	70	67
Avg Power	262	296	324	289
Avg Power (watts/kg)	3.73	4.21	4.61	4.30
Max Power	1105	1045	1123	1059
Max Power (watts/kg)	15.72	14.86	15.97	15.77
Avg Speed (mi/hr)	27.04	28.01	28.13	28.35
Max Speed (mi/hr)	35.49	36.2	36.92	36.92
5 sec Peak Power	974	872	985	936
5 sec Power (watts/kg)	13.85	12.40	14.01	13.94
30 sec Peak Power	460	525	535	473
30 sec Power (watts/kg)	6.54	7.47	7.61	7.05
1 min Peak Power	399	451	451	413
1 min Power (watts/kg)	5.6751	6.4147	6.4147	6.1521
5 min Peak Power	307	359	366	336
5 min Power (watts/kg)	4.37	5.11	5.21	5.01
10 min Peak Power	296	336	349	315
10 min Power (watts/kg)	4.21	4.78	4.96	4.69
30 min Peak Power	282	310	332	295
30 min Power (watts/kg)	4.01	4.41	4.72	4.39

One might assume that Roessingh had the lowest power values of the bunch based on the fact that he got popped from the main group in the last lap. However, when we take a look at his graphe, it clearly shows the point where he crashed (all the graph lines - except heart rate - go to zero).  Then his speed averages 3.8 miles per hour, and his power averages zero for the 3 minutes it takes him to run back to the pit for his free lap.  If we take the crash out of the dataset, his averages are closer to that of Scholzen's.

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Scholzen put down some strong numbers for the race, and finished in the main group.  His graph also reveals the point in the race where he spent some time on the pavement, luckily only suffering some road rash from the fall.

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Busche put out the highest numbers for the team. However, this begs the question: if Busche and Scholzen weigh the same and both finished in the main group, why would their power numbers be different?  On this tight, technical course, Scholzen, being the more experienced racer and crit specialist, had an easier time keeping himself out of the wind an in other riders' drafts.  Busche, on the other hand, stuck his nose into the wind several times thoughout the race.  The fact that he was able to do this and still finish in the main group shows that he has an impressive motor in him.

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Lastly, we were able to get power values from Johnny Clarke whose Toyota United team has dominated many U.S. races over the past few years. Impressively, the power numbers the ISCorp riders put out were all in the ballpark of his power output.

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Have questions for the riders or about the data? Post them below in the comments section, and we will do our best to answer them.